While strolling the museum, I recently made the acquaintance of a top-hatted and mustachioed gentleman, who was lounging within the confines of Edouard Manet’s “Bar […]
But Knot For Me
The decadent dandy has as his guidebook “Against Nature,” the “poisonous” yellow book redolent of incense that Lord Henry gives to Dorian, the catalyst for […]
The Dandy’s Perambulations
The Dandy’s Perambulations Author unknown, 1819 Five hours (and who can do it in less?) By Mr. Pink was spent in dressing. […]
Yes Sir, That’s Our Beebe
When Dandyism.net launched in 2004, we stated as our mission the desire to rescue the dandy from the slag heap of history through rigorous scholarship […]
Beauography
I was prepared to thoroughly dislike Ian Kelly’s biography of Beau Brummell. The attendant ballyhoo when it was released was lascivious and sensational — Brummell […]
Snob Story
G. Bruce Boyer herein recounts a lesser-known anecdote about the stupendously dapper Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., with whom Boyer was privileged to lunch late in Fairbanks’ […]
Count, Your Blessings
In 1844, at the height of his fame, Count Alfred d’Orsay found himself lampooned in print. Writing under the pen name A Man of Fashion, […]
Refined & Debonair
Beau Brummell By Virginia Woolf, 1925 Image: John Barrymore as Brummell, 1924 When Cowper, in the seclusion of Olney, was roused to anger by the […]
Dancing Chic To Chic
Fred Astaire lounges in a swank London flat, attired in a speckled dressing gown and cravat, musically daydreaming about the girl he’s just met. He’s […]
Proud Independence
From “Memoirs From Beyond the Grave” By Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand, 1848 Image: 1890 engraving of Almack’s Club in 1815 There was no longer any question […]
An Ideal Dandy
Hugh Grant, that blend of Christopher Robin and cuddly roué is the ideal cinematic Englishman. Take the hesitant stutter and the shyness of his “I […]
Beau Jest
Everyone knows the jests and bon mots of Beau Brummell’s as recounted by Captain Jesse. The “Do you call that thing a coat?” line, and […]
Subtlety & Dignity
Lounging nude in a bathtub, George Brummell holds a razor to his throat. Will he remove his stubble, or end his life? This stark suicidal […]
Edge Of Reason
Laren Stover’s “Bohemian Manifesto” is not a manifesto at all. It does not hail the wave-like crash of a mighty new movement against the rocky […]
Adventures In Beauty
There is no excitement quite like that of unwrapping books you have just gotten in the mail. Pretensions to maturity and sophistication fly out the […]
Microbian Dandyism
Perhaps because of our Proustian and Balzacian education, we have been convinced for years that dandyism as we know it from literature and history has […]
Romp And Circumstance
Despite doing his best work while wearing no clothes, Giacomo Casanova has been anointed a sort of patron saint of dandies. Stephen Robins, in his […]
Exclusive Member
The 2005 bicentenary of the Pere Lachaise cemetery caused an extraordinary phenomenona worthy of an Edgar Allan Poe tale. The mystery discovered by Parisian keepers […]
Brideshead Relinquished
Outrage against cultural debasement becomes a dandy as much as a good pair of white summer flannels, but the film adaptation of “Brideshead Revisited” stirred […]
The Fake’s Progress
Every era gets the dandies it deserves. The Regency got Brummell, a true sartorial innovator whose wit was as crisp as his country-washed linen. Count D’Orsay […]
Jolly Roger
For his 80th birthday in 2007, Sir Roger Moore received an appropriate present: a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Moore attended the […]